Photo Album by Jason Byrne (almost 600 photos) | Complete Results
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Sebring's boys and girls teams swept the team titles at their third home meet of the season over Bartow, Avon Park and Lake Placid.
Erika Cord of Sebring won the high jump by tying her personal best in a state bronze elite mark of 5-2. Teammate Shalontay Rose took second with a 5-0 clearance. Rose also took gold medal performances in the long jump (16-3) and triple jump (32-2.5).
Taylor Tubbs switched it up from her normal 1600 to go after the 3200 tonight. She found herself as one of two girls slated to compete in the 3200 meters and so the genders were once again combined. From the gun, Tubbs and fellow Sebring Blue Streak Damien Foster teamed up and worked on pacing each other, both having similar personal bests. Tubbs' goal was to break into the 10-minute club, in what will likely be her only time competing in the race in her senior season. The two started off very close to 5:30 pace for the first mile before hitting a little cruise control on laps six and seven. On the last lap Tubbs, having gapped her male counterpart, cranked it up a notch and finished with a nice negative split of 72 seconds to finish in 10:55.4, Foster held on for an 11:07.
After the race the senior, who signed with the University of Florida, commented "Well that felt pretty easy." She is clearly ready to break out a 10:40 with no problem.
Lucky the 10:55 barely winded the senior harrier, because the SHS captain had only five minutes rest until her next event. She ran second leg of the Sebring girls 4x400 meter relay, once again an event with males and females combined in the same race. Anchor could have at least given her a couple more minutes to breath! But it didn't matter. Tubbs split 65 seconds for her leg of the winning 4:43 girls team.
Hannah Schroeder of Sebring ran anchor for the Blue Streaks in that decisive 4x4 victory over Avon Park. And lucky she managed to finish at all! With about five meters to go an athlete from an opposing team wasn't paying attention, stepped out on to the track, and nearly took out the would be winner. Despite being dazed by the violent collission, Schroeder powered through to the finish line and took out the complacent young man like she was a linebacker.
It was Schroeder's third and final victory on the day. She started out as anchor of the 4x800 (12:10) and then won the open 800 by a huge margin in 2:35. The senior will be running college track next year for Bryan College in Tennessee.
Kiley "Blake" Fort has had a long road since her 10-6 clearance at last year's 3A state meet that earned her eighth place. Though she was unsatisfied with her height, just managing to pull out the narrow victory over teammate Alexandra Blackman with an 8-foot clearance, it's not a bad feat considering the new mom is working her way back into form after giving birth to her newborn baby boy less than a month ago. The senior hopes to get back to nine feet by next week's meet in Frostproof with hopes of perhaps crawling herself back into contention at the state level.
The Foster twins of Sebring--Eric and Damien--gave their Blue Streaks a sweep in the boys distance events.
Eric won by a straightaway in both of his individual events with a 17 second margin of victory on his 2:08 800 meter win, and a whopping 36 seconds in his 5:39.8 1600 meter victory. Brother Damien was the first boy--second overall in the mixed race behind Taylor Tubbs--to cross the line in the 3200 meters. Lapping the rest of the field, his 11:07 was almost a minute-twenty over the next male finisher.
Both brothers also contributed to Sebring's 8:58 4x800 meter victory.
Sebring's Jordyn Blount contributed to four victories of his own. He cleared 6-0 in the high jump, won the long jump, and contributed legs to winning 4x100 (43.6) and 4x400 (3:50.5) teams.
Brian "White Lightning" Dixon, who has been dominant locally in his first year in the sport, also contributed to that win. He finished first in the 200 meters by a wide margin in 22.4 and second in the 100 with an 11.3 hand timed.
Bartow senior Hieden Cummings dealt Dixon his one loss in the 100 meters with an 11.2 hand time. Dixon got him back by winning that 200. Cummings has been having a great year including his third place 11.08 finish at the Polk County Championships last week.
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